


How The Twins Corrupted The Brightest Witch Of Their Age

by ColeTheCapricorn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hogwarts First Year, Misunderstandings, Twins Befriending Hermione First, Weasley twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:42:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColeTheCapricorn/pseuds/ColeTheCapricorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione Granger meets Fred, George and Lee on the Hogwarts express before her first year, and its the beginning of something great.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How The Twins Corrupted The Brightest Witch Of Their Age

**Author's Note:**

> First work posted on this site, I would love to hear anything from anyone, comments, questions, concerns, hate, suggestions, what ever inspires you to put fingers to keyboard in an attempt to communicate with me. I do not own the Harry Potter series or any of its characters or its world.

The little girl, in her newly shined school shoes stood at the platform of The Kings Cross station under the number nine looking just a few meters away at the number ten with a slight frown on her face. Hermione Granger was early, she knew, and she on some level understood that a “magic train” would not just appear. In the books she had read over the summer where a girl or boy suddenly learns they are magical the transportation, if mention, often appeared before them even if there were people around them, being normal made them blind, but she had been assured by her text books that she had been reading ahead in that this would certainly not be the case for her. She had read in one book she had gotten off the required list, ‘Hogwarts, A History’ that the hidden entrance to the magical platform would be directly between the signs nine and ten.

One part of her, the most practical part, still doubted all of these things she had been reading and seeing, even with her own eyes. She still recalled the splendor of Diagon Alley and all its strange new ways, but it could all be a dream, it could all be a joke, this could all be something not real and taken away from her at any moment and she would not let that happen.

She had put her finger gently to the brick and had felt nothing. She had half expected this magic inside her to rise up and let her through on its own, and then she would be on the other side. Pulling her hand back she looked to her parents. The small girl had decided to wait until some other students showed up and went through the entrance so that she would be more certain as to how to get in. Had Professor McGonagall had forgotten to tell her some trick. Was she to tap the bricks like in Diagon Alley? Would it even be the same sequence? Why had she not paid better attention or written it down? She took several steps back towards where her parents had parked her cart.

She heard the hooting before it registered that two older boys walked by her. They paused to look around briefly before walking straight through the wall without pause or care, still continuing their conversation about homework and summer readings. Hermione heard her mother gasp, and her father placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned around to face him as he smiled down at her.

“We’d like to walk you to the train, but I do not think I would be able to do that sweetpea,” he said. He was smiling at her, but she could tell he was not happy. The young bushy hair child looked to her mother who was already starting to tear up. “You’ll write to us though tonight, won’t you love?”

“Of course,” she said quickly squaring her shoulders, she would not tear up and cry, what would the other students think? She’d wait til later if she really was not feeling well, but on the other side of that wall was an adventure and so much to learn and see. Part of her felt bad for not being more upset to not be able to see her parents off properly. She had gotten her hair and eye color from her father, but she was always told that she looked so much like her mother from her face and from the crop of wild hair that surrounded her. On her mother the blonde almost brunette hair floated around her gently and gave her a cute look while Hermione’s hair had taken on some of her father’s more coarse feel and became mostly unmanageable on the best of days. She was smart and could see these similarities and differences even at age eleven, but seeing them now, and realizing she would not see them until possibly Christmas she set aside a moment to memorize them again, look at them from a new angle.

“I love you,” she told them quietly as they pulled her close before she got her cart ready and bravely marched through the brick barrier (though she did close her eyes) between her parents and the train that would take her to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

* * *

 

Weaving between the parents saying good-bye to their children, the various pets, luggage that seemed to move on its own, and the general chaos of a lot of people in a small place, made getting to the train no small feat. Trying to lift a suitcase full of school clothes, a cauldron, and many many books was just as impossible for the young new witch. Finding an empty compartment, which was not truly impossible, as she had arrived with time to spare was still an exercise in frustration. Finally, trying to put her considerably heavy trunk above her onto the racks provided above each seat. She looked down at her task, then up at the rack, then out to the people who kept passing her compartment. They would glance in, see that it was occupied and then move on in hopes of finding another empty compartment. She looked down and frowned again.

Deciding that if anyone else did want to share the compartment with her they could help her possibly move the trunk to the rack with her, and in turn she would try to help them get theirs up as well. Maybe she would meet someone in her year with her who could answer her many many questions. Or better, someone older who could tell her more about future school. She considered briefly being the one to tell someone like her, someone who was muggleborn what she had learned, but had learned from past experience that people did not always take learning from Hermione to be a pleasant experience. She opened her trunk and looked down at one set of plain black robes, a skirt, and a school shirt, as well as the stockings that she would be wearing as her uniform folded nicely on top. A little square of fabric that was her tie also sat on top of the books piled on one side of the trunk, a plain dark charcoal that would magically change according to her house assignment. She had seen some older students already dressed, sporting reds and greens and yellows all over the platform and train. Making a decision she quickly shut the door, and pulled down the shades while she changed into the new clothes even before the train had left the station. Putting each piece of her new uniform on with care and folding up her day clothes to put back in her trunk did not take long, but she vowed to remember this moment for when she was older. She raised the shades, but did not open the door again, keeping the noise down to a minimum. Carefully packing the last of her muggle clothes away, she pulled out ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration’, and tucked her new school shoes quietly next to her as she leaned against the compartments window to wait.

Time passed, and the amount of people seemed only to grow, though this all escaped the notice of the little witch who was busy wondering how it was ethically sound to turn a mouse into a snuff box. People passed by her compartment in droves and soon began to double back as the train became more full until finally the latch clicked, startling her out of her readings to look up at two identical faces.

“’ello,” they said together, each raising one hand in a mirroring gesture. Hermione blinked once, then again before responding with a hello of her own.

“Mind if we kip here with you then?” Two smiles beamed at her, making her smile back. The red hair and freckles added to their smiles and their brown eyes were crinkled up to accommodate how wide their grins stretched.

The other jumped in, “We’re also expecting one more,” he said putting up one finger.

“If you aren’t expecting anyone else,” the first finished.

“No, that is alright,” Hermione said. “Do you practice that?”

“Oh no dear girl,” the first said dramatically, reeling back slightly, straightening his back to stand at his full height.

“We are twins,” the second said.

“We share one-“ the first started before he was cut off from a voice behind him.

“Fred, George, please make room in the walk way so other students may pass you,” a haughty voice said from behind them. Hermione leaned further way from the window to peer past them to see another boy who looked just like the first two, but was not identical. The boy had the same hair, same freckles, same eye color but a little taller, but no sign of a smile.

“Percyyyyy,” they both whined hanging of the boy.

“Get off,” the boy huffed, pushing weakly at their arms, which crossed over his shoulders. “Just get in the compartment!” his voiced raised as he fought vainly to get free.

“You can come in,” Hermione said, straightening her back, hoping to be heard over the slight scuffle. She had seen that they all wore the colors of the Gryffindor house. The twins had seemed nice, and maybe they would be willing to answer her questions on the house of Godric Gryffindor.

“The lady invited us in Forge!” the one on the right cheered.

“So she did Gred,” the other grinned.

“Will you be joining us, Percy?” Forge asked sweetly at the boy between him and his twin.

“We’d so enjoy your company,” Gred said grinning.

“I have prefect business,” Percy said coughing into his hand and finally managing to get free of their hold he left.

“Don’t mind our darling older brother,” the one called Gred said kindly to Hermione.

“He’s normally a basket of roses,” the one called Forge answered. Each twin grabbed one end of Hermione’s trunk and lifted it with little effort above her, before taking care of their own. Theirs looked older, more battered in a way. One had a bright splash of something across the top corner that seemed to have bled down the sides causing some kind of discoloration.

“I… I’ll take your word for it,” Hermione said politely. “Thank you for moving my trunk. I’m Hermione Granger, and you are…?”

“Forge,” the one who sat across from her said.

“And Gred,” the one sitting next to his brother said as they both intoned, “-Weasley.”

“That was our darling older bother,” Forge said.

“Percy Ignatius Weasley,” Gred said.

“Your brother called you Fred and George,” she said carefully.

“We go by that as well,” said the one not sitting across from her.

“But everyone, including ourselves,” the one originally calling himself Forge said.

“Have forgotten which is which,” Gred said.

“That can’t be true,” Hermione said, brow furrowing. “And how have you not practiced this.” The train whistle howled and the train began to move. They looked out the window and waved at the people on the platform. Hermione looked behind her to see who they could be waving at but the train was already beginning to blur the faces before them.

“Oh they practice, they are quite vain by nature,” a new voice said from the door. The three current occupants of the compartment looked up at the new comer. A dark skinned boy, with dark dreaded hair and bright brown eyes leaned against the compartments’ door.

“Lee!” Forge cried grabbing his heart.

“How could you?” the other sobbed putting his face in his hands.

“With a flair for the dramatic, don’t mind them,” the new boy said dragging his trunk into the compartment and closing in the door again. “Little help?”

“After what you said?” both asked, now looking completely blank faced, but no longer feigning hurt.

“Is it heavy?” Hermione asked, wondering if she could lift it. It looked older than hers, heavy metal corners and bars crossed over the trunk and it looked like his was a heavy and thick wood.

“You’re gonna let a lady help me?” Lee asked, looking to the twins.

“Women are stronger than you think Lee,” one shrugged as the other gave in and stood to help Lee with the trunk. Here they did grunt but eventually get it over their heads onto the rack. Hermione watched as they put it away and got settled. “Thanks George.” Hermione took note that made the one sitting across from her Fred. Not that this would be any help if they moved around, but for the time being she knew which twin was which.

“So you’re a first year,” Lee said by way of introduction. “Your tie has no color,” he said gesturing at his own necktie by way of explanation.

“Yeah, I was told that it would change when I was sorted,” Hermione said putting a hand over her plain grey tie. “I see you are all in Gryffindor.”

“Yeah, what house where you hoping to be in? Not Slytherin if you invited us in,” one of the twins said folding his hands behind his head and leaning back.

“I heard of their rivalry, but I don’t know what house I will be in,” she said evenly.

“What house were your parents in?” Lee asked, pulling a bag of something out of his pocket.

“My parents did not attend Hogwarts,” Hermione said. She did not further explain, looking around the compartment.

“Are you a muggleborn then?” Lee asked slowly.

“I am,” she answered.

“Oh, we just assumed since you were already in your robes,” Fred said easily.

“Did you walk around King’s Cross in those?” George followed up.

“No, I changed here on the train,” she said primly straightening her skirt.

“So what do you know about Hogwarts?” Lee asked, situating his back to the corner of the compartments walls and seat. The train bumped and jostled him around a little before he got comfortable.

Hermione began to carefully explain what she knew from what she read before being asked questions about how and why she knew these things. She asked her own questions; how the houses worked, what the castle was like, how the classes worked and were structured. They tried to keep up with her questions, though they quickly learned the new little first year was far more intelligent then they were at that age. Topics began to stray though as the boys began to explain Quidditch which lead to discussions about the team this year and try outs, and soon Hermione was just listening as the boys talked amongst themselves. She pulled her book back into her lap as the topic stayed on the strange wizard sport. Time passed as they raced across farms and small towns, though it seemed no one noticed the large train full of magical students.

She noticed a change when their voices when from light too more serious in nature. She looked up, and started to tune in slowly, coming out of her focus that was previously on her textbook.

“Mixing that charm with even a simple transfiguration spell will make the whole thing go tits up,” Lee said shaking his head.

“Come on Lee,” Fred said smiling charmingly at his friend.

“We all know out of the three of us you are the best at transfiguration,” George continued.

“If anyone could do it you could,” they chimed in unison.

“That doesn’t work anymore, not after last year. I told you that wouldn’t work anymore after what happened with the Hufflepuff quidditch team,” Lee protested, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Mixing magics?” Hermione asked. The three boys turned to her, “I was reading about it over the summer, is this part of the summer homework?”

“No-“ Lee started.

“Not exactly,” Fred said waving his hand, drawing Hermione’s attention.

“Think of it as extra credit, out of classes work,” George said, picking up where Fred left off.

“My ‘Magical Theory’ book was very interesting, and I ended up reading the whole book before the summer was over,” Hermione gushed, her eyes lightening. “Mixing a charm with a transfiguration spell is fairly advanced, but bending a charm to lay under a transfiguration spell would not be difficult depending on the material the item you are transfiguring is made of.”

Lee’s eye brows raised, as did Fred’s, but George’s brow furrowed. “You mean not to change the spell but to layer them separately, by casting them at different times?” George asked, putting his hands out in front of him, one laying on top of the other.

“No, you would need two or four casters, the first one beginning with the charm,” here Hermione put out one hand palm up, “followed by the second, the transfiguration spell,”she placed her other hand face down on the first but lacing the fingers together flat. “The layering allows both spells to do what they need to do as long as the material is natural but not alive itself, like a mouse or a bird. Assuming that neither the charm or the transfiguration spell have negative properties that cancels out in each other.”

Fred and George challenged her knowledge on this a bit more before she climbed up onto her seat to dig around in her luggage pulling out not only her ‘Magical Theory’ book but her first year Charms book to see if the charm’s negative properties would react negatively to treated wood verses natural untreated wood. Lee would come back with the properties of the transfiguration spell they spoke of, a way to make the wood to appear as though it grew fur and bear like features. The charm would cause singing and some limited movement that was meant to be ‘dancing’. Hermione was watching Fred and George talk about the finer wand movements of the charm when the compartment door slides open. A boy, in the same black and charcoal colors as the young witch, looked into the compartment. His eyes were big and somewhat frightened as he looked around before stuttering out a question.

“Could you,” Fred piped.

“Say that again?” George asked.

The boy muttered his question again, but Hermione heard the word that sounded like toad, and gone. “Toad?” she asked to clarify.

“Lost it,” the boy said nodding, his eyes staying on the ground.

“Oh, your pet?” Hermione asked, feeling bad for the boy who finally met her eyes. He looked shocked but managed a shaky smile and nodded. She looked back to the twins, who had already returned to their discussion, then to Lee who shrugged at her. “Well, I could help you look,” Hermione said standing, then straightening her robes. Being so new they felt stiff against her shoulders as she tried to pull the sleeves into a more comfortable length. She crossed the compartment, stepping over the legs that were crossed and stretched across her path, and remained unmoving as she carefully navigated the way to the door. The twins looked on amused as Lee shook his head, even as his right leg was her last short hurdle to cross.

She smiled back before looking back at Fred, George and Lee, one hand on the door. “You should all probably get changed before I get back,” she said smartly before sliding the door closed behind her. “Now what does your toad look like?” she asked turning to the boy.

Nearly forty minutes later the bushy haired brunette returned to the compartment with the twins and Lee mostly in their school uniform, their ties and robes were piled on Hermione’s seat. She stopped in the door, and frowned slightly the pile. This had happened before when she was younger, at her old school. On class trips and parties she had attended things would accumulate where she had sat. Intellectually she had known that these were deliberate steps to make her feel less welcome to join the group again if she had returned, and had often ignored them to find somewhere else to visit or sit. She was ready to step back, but was unsure of where she would go; she had seen for herself that there were no empty compartments, and many students had not responded well to her rather brisk manner of searching for the poor lost Trevor the toad. She could try the other half of the train that Neville had looked through, hoping to find a compartment of first years that she had not already met. She did not know how long of a journey they had left; she could always wait in the loo and hallway like she had on the trip to aquarium in second year. The jellyfish had been close to the bathroom, and it had actually been nice. Just as she was turning to find some solution the conversation stopped.

“Oi, you there,” the one she thought might be George called. “What’s her name?” this was much quieter, and Hermione did not think she was meant to hear it.

Turning back to the window that separated the group from herself she looked to see she had all of their attention. “Hermione, get in here, I think we figured out the p… problem we were having,” the other twin encouraged, waving his hand in a beckoning gesture.

It took her a moment to realize she had not moved, an again another passed before she was able to remove the shock from her face and duck her head as if to look for the handle and come in. What she was really doing was giving herself a moment to get over her surprise of being welcomed back. ‘These boys must really be intellectual.’ She thought before entering the compartment to Fred already explaining their thought process that lead to their modified spell. They explained that they would be testing it out that night, when they got to their own common room and promised if she was not there to witness it they would tell her all about it. She had a moment where she deeply wished she would be in Gryffindor Tower to see this spell they had worked so hard on come to fruition. She wondered what life would be like if she could always talk to these three when working on homework or just relaxing on a weekend doing some light reading. Being intellectuals like her, she imagined it would be like a study group or a researching party in the library like she had always wanted out of the friends at her previous school.

Lee asked if she had found the toad she had left them for and she told them how him how she had tried but had been unsuccessful. Hermione mentioned that she might have met another brother or cousin of theirs, and they in turn told rather unflattering stories about their younger brother, “Ronnikins”, that made Hermione and Lee laugh.

The time on the train seemed to fly by as they talked about magic, and what Hermione was excited to learn, and what she had read about in ‘Hogwarts, A History’ about the castle. The young witch could not think of a time where she felt more welcome, and in this moment she was so thankful for that owl sailing into her parent’s kitchen window to deliver that fateful letter welcoming her into Hogwarts.


End file.
